The cake was all set. The flowers were picked out. But it was the guest list that freaked out Kellie Pickler.

“We were almost finished with the wedding planning,” the newlywed country singer, 24, says in an interview airing Wednesday on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. “And every time we got to the guest list, it was like, ‘Oh my God, I hate half these people.’ Nothing personal.”

So, she and songwriter Kyle Jacobs ditched it all and eloped to Antigua in the Caribbean, where they tied the knot in the ocean surf at sunset on New Year’s Day.

Unlike the wedding, the eloping didn’t require much planning – just a fearless spirit. “All we did was I packed the wedding dress and packed him an outfit,” Pickler says. “We totally just put faith in God that it was all going to work out, and it did, and it was the most incredible day of my life.”

Pickler also reveals that she had her husband’s ring engraved with a special message – one that he’ll surely find amusing in the coming years.

“I put our wedding anniversary, 1-1-11, and I put, ‘Put it back on!’ ” she says. “So, if he takes if off and he looks at it, it’s going to say, ‘Put it back on!’ “

If there were any questions about the international appeal of Taylor Swift, they were answered as she wrapped up the Asian leg of her Speak Now world tour earlier this week.

Prior to taking the stage in Hong Kong on Monday (pictured left), the 21-year-old superstar was presented with numerous platinum sales plaques from Taiwan, South Korea, Indonesia and the Phillipines for her latest album, ‘Speak Now.’ Her previous album, ‘Fearless,’ has sold 400,000 copies in the area.

“Some of them were really suprising to me. I wasn’t aware of every single certification we have in Asia,” Taylor told the Associated Pressbackstage. “It really blew my mind.”

After taking a year off from touring, Kenny Chesney still worked hard at making a pair of documentary films, a live 3D concert movie and recording and releasing a new album. The record, ‘Hemingway’s Whiskey,’ scored an ACM nomination for Album of the Year, and the four-time ACM Entertainer of the Year is also up for four more awards including Single and Video of the Year for ‘The Boys of Fall.’

The Tennessee native is grateful for the extra time he spent in the studio to make the kind of album he did with ‘Hemingway’s Whiskey.’ In fact, he may have recorded nearly two albums worth of material.

“I’m very proud of the fact that the album was nominated, because I took a lot of extra time with ‘Hemingsway’s Whiskey,’” Kenny tells The Boot. “I had a whole other album done and almost turned it in, and I realized that in my heart of hearts, I knew that that album wasn’t right. And I scrapped all of it except for ‘Boys of Fall,’ ‘Somewhere With You’ and a song called ‘Seven Days.’ Those were the only songs I kept from the original sessions, and I went to work again, [producer] Buddy Cannon and I.

“Because I didn’t tour, I was afforded the luxury of time,” Kenny continues. “We get so caught up in a cycle and having a record done when you’re supposed to have it done, just because it’s time — every 18 months or 12 or whatever. I didn’t have to do that this time. That’s why I’m really excited about the album nomination — I’m excited about all of them — but that one’s extra special because Buddy and I really had the opportunity to take our time and make it right. So, I’m excited about the opportunity for this record.”

‘Glee’ is going country once again! Just a week after the hit TV show’s characters sang a rousing rendition of Lady Antebellum’s ‘Need You Now,’ they’re set to tackle another country song about being a little drunk, Jerrod Niemann’s ‘How Can I Be So Thirsty.’ In fact, the title of tonight’s (Februay 22) episode is ‘Blame It on the Alcohol.’

“How can I be so thirsty this morning / After all I drank last night?” Jerrod sings in the chorus of the humorous song, found on his chart-topping debut CD, ‘Judge Jerrod and the Hung Jury.’

(Reuters) – Country trio Lady Antebellum and Canadian rock band Arcade Fire lit up the Grammy Awards on Sunday, winning key prizes in a ceremony packed with upset victories and a humiliating setback for Eminem.

The hip-hop star, who led the field with 10 nominations and had been expected to dominate the ceremony, ended up with just two awards in the rap field.

Lady Antebellum, on the other hand, picked up five prizes, including song and record of the year. It marked the second consecutive year that a country act dominated the event, after Taylor Swift grabbed the Grammy glory in 2010.

Arcade Fire denied Lady Antebellum a clean sweep by winning the event’s top prize, album of the year. In a year dominated by pop, R&B and hip-hop acts, few pundits had given the defiantly independent Montreal band any chance of taking the top prize. Moreover, the band lost two earlier races.

They were so shocked to hear their name called by presenter Barbra Streisand that they delivered an unscheduled performance to close the show.

The band was honored for its album “The Suburbs,” which topped the U.S. and Canadian charts last year without the support of a major label. It was the first time a rock band had won the award since U2 in 2005.

One benefit of writing songs about unrequited crushes? Sometimes they respond.

Such was the case when Taylor Swift, 21, penned a ballad about meeting Owl City singer Adam Young for her latest CD, Speak Now.

The four-time Grammy winner — who split with latest beauJake Gyllenhaal in December — told Yahoo! Music last year that she wrote the song “Enchanted”, “about this guy that I met in New York City, and I had talked to him on email or something before, but I had never met him. And meeting him, it was this overwhelming feeling of: I really hope that you’re not in love with somebody.”

She also added that she included the word “wonderstruck” in the lyrics because he had used it in one of his emails to her.

Luckily Young picked up the hints (including Swift’s decision to capitalize the letters A-D-A-M in the album’s lyric booklet). On Monday, the crooner, 24, used his band’s blog to write a response to the starlet, complete with his own version of “Enchanted”, The Hollywood Reporter reports.

“I’m so tremendously honored that Taylor would write such an elegant song and thereby offer a gracious nod in my direction,” Young wrote in the blog, appropriately posted on Valentine’s Day. “Needless to say, I was lost for words and utterly smitten. I couldn’t stop smiling.”

In the Owl City singer’s version of the ditty, he added a new verse: “I was never in love with someone else / I never had somebody waiting on me / ‘Cause you were all of my dreams come true / And I just wish you knew / Taylor I was so in love with you.”

And while he calls himself a “shy boy” in the post, he didn’t play coy when it came to sharing his feelings.

“Everything about you is beautiful,” he wrote. “You’re an immensely charming girl with a wonderful heart and more grace and elegance than I know how to describe. You are a true princess from a dreamy fairy tale; a modern Cinderella. I’m terribly sorry it’s taken me such a long time to reply but I figured Valentine’s Day was the perfect time to write this note to you and simply say… I was enchanted to meet you too.”

Taylor Swift is as all-American as they come, but that doesn’t mean her pop charm doesn’t translate overseas. The talented 20-year-old is in the midst of a world tour, and she kicked it off with a sold-out show at Singapore’s Indoor Stadium.

The “Mine” singer’s Singapore fans began arriving for the show a full 24 hours in advance, and Swift rewarded her fans’ patience with a 90-minute set. Now that’s dedication!

After the show, Swift tweeted “THAT SHOW RULED!! Thank you Singapore. My band and I love you. And your dancing and jumping and singing and screaming! Good times.”

Her 19-country, 90-show tour continues on Friday with a show in Seoul, South Korea.

Onward and upward! Over a month after Jake Gyllenhaal put the brakes on their romance, Taylor Swift was back to her bubbly self during a free-wheeling interview for Nashville radio station 107.5 The River. The country sweetheart, 21, has lots to keep her busy and distracted from any lingering heartache: a worldwide tour in support of her mega-smash album Speak Now.

“I can’t wait!” she gushed. “Getting back on the road is something I have been looking forward to for a really long time.” How does the single star gear up for traveling around the globe for months on end, anyway? ”I look at the weather in every single place I am going to be,” she said. “I am packing for every single season of the year.”

Added the multi-plantinum singer: “I don’t pack as heavily as you think. Like, I’m not a crazy high maintenance packing person.” Swift had another surprise up her sleeve: She’s rapping again! After an infamous rap duet with T-Pain last year, she showed off her rhyming skills once again during her The River chat — covering Nicki Minaj’s “Super Bass.”

“I really freak my friends out because I can recite every single lyric to the rap!” said Swift, whose rap moniker is “T-Swizzle.” (Watch her rap skills here.) Although Swift had to be coaxed into her hip-hop performance, it was a less awkward moment than Jan. 19, when Swift put on a happy face during an unexpected dinner date at Nashville eater Bound’ry with ex Gyllenhaal, 30. Gyllenhaal had brokered the meeting “for closure,” a pal recently explained to Us Weekly.

The Love and Other Drugs star wanted “to see if there was still anything between them, if they could recapture the magic. Sadly, it wasn’t there,” the source reveals of the meeting. Swift’s take on the meal? “Taylor was just getting over Jake,” another pal says. “She was thrown…The whole thing was really weird to her.”